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Abstract

This investigation made it possible to compare the sorption capacity of mineral and organic sorbents in respect to U(VI). In order to establish the patterns of sorption, natural sorbents with a high content of rock-forming mineral were used: glauconite, diatomite, zeolite, peat, brown and hard coals, shungite. Each sample was characterized using X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence method, scanning electron microscope, XPS spectra, potentiometric acid–base titration and surface area measurement. The partitioning of U(VI) was determined by sequential extraction technique. It was shown that the highest sorption ability and strongest interaction towards U(VI) is common to peat and brown coal.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Zakusin S.V. and Garanina S.A. for the help with XRD diagnostic (MSU, Russia), Chernov M.S for SEM diagnostic (MSU, Russia) and Tyupina E.A for BET (MUCTR, Russia). The study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, Project No. 18-77-00015.

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AS carried out the sorption experiments with the radionuclides and wrote the paper. PB and AR prepared the materials, conceived and designed the experiments and managed the work progress. AR carried out the sequential extraction experiments. YI and IT carried out the potentiometric acid–base titration and interpreted the sorption results on the organic samples. KM carried out the XPS experiments. VK collected the data for the mineral investigation and interpreted the results of the electron microscope and specific surface area analysis.

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Correspondence to Petr Belousov.

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Semenkova, A., Belousov, P., Rzhevskaia, A. et al. U(VI) sorption onto natural sorbents. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 326, 293–301 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-020-07318-y

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